Showing papers in "Canadian Journal of Sociology in 2002"

Foucault on Governmentality and Population: The Impossible Discovery *

Abstract: For Michel Foucault's analysis of state formation, the 'discovery of population' was the pivot on which the transition from rule based on police to rule in liberal modes of government took place. Moder 'governmentality' takes population as its object. Foucault's usages of 'population' proposition to the continually asked questions 'what's the class?,' 'where's the class?,' 'what class do you belong to?.' And the French Communist Party con- fronted all social struggles with the question, 'is this struggle in the interest of theproletariat?.' Marxists askedrepeatedly 'what's the class?' butnever 'what's the struggle?,' 'who is engaged in struggle?,' 'what is at stake in struggle?,'

Explicating social capital: Trust and participation in the civil space

Abstract: According to some commentators, social capital, i.e., the nature of trust and participation in the civil space, may influence population health, political performance and/or economic growth. In the social capital literature, however, the relationship between trust and participation in social networks in the civil space isunderdeveloped theoretically and empirically. Respondents to a survey in Saskatchewan, Canada trusted people from nearby communities the most, experts and professionals less strongly and governments least of all, suggesting a multifaceted notion of trust, although those who trusted one referent tended to express trust for another, suggesting continuity to its character in the self. Religious affiliation proved one of the most salient predictors of trust, suggesting an intriguing link between faith and trust. Respondents who participated in many secondary associations in the civil space were relatively more trusting, as were those who participated in cooperative associations and in g roups with an interest in furthering some common good. Resume: Selon certains commentateurs, le capital social, c.-a-d. Ia mesure de la confiance et de la participation a la vie civique, pourrait influencer la sante des populations, la performance politique et/ou la croissance economique. Dans la litterature du capital social, toutefois, la relation entre la confiance et la participation aux reseaux sociaux du milieu civique est sous-developpee, tant du point de vue theorique qu'empirique. Les sujets interroges lors d'un sondage mene en Saskatchewan (Canada) accordaient leur plus grande confiance aux gens des collectivites avoisinantes, mais avaient moins confiance aux experts et aux professionnels, et moms encore aux gouvernements, ce qui suggere une notion polyvalente de la confiance. Par ailleurs, les personnes qui disaient avoir confiance a l'une des categories mentionnees tendaient a exprimer leur confiance envers une autre, ce qui suggere une continuite de son caractere au sein du moi. L'appartenance religieuse s'est avere etre l'une des meilleures variable s predictives de la confiance, ce qui suggere un lien fascinant entre foi et confiance. Les sujets interroges qui participaient a de nombreuses associations secondaires au sein du milieu civique etaient relativement plus disposes a faire confiance, tout comme l'etaient ceux qui participaient a des associations cooperatives et a des groupes voues a la poursuite d'un bien commun. Introduction The notion of social capital has attained some prominence in rather disparate arenas of discourse. Researchers argue that certain characteristics of the civil space, i.e., trust and participation in social networks, may constitute a valuable resource for social groups, communities or societies. In the world of public health research, for example, social capital, or social cohesion, a closely related concept, is thought to constitute an important determinant of the health of populations (e.g. Wilkinson, 1996; Kawachi et al., 1997; Lynch and Kaplan, 1997; Coburn, 2000; Hawe and Shiell, 2000; Kawachi and Berkman, 2000; Lynch et al., 2000; Putnam, 2000; Veenstra, 2000, 2001, 2002). Kawachi and Berkman (2000) speculate that interpersonal trust and participation in networks may influence the health of individuals directly, e.g., by providing social support for people, but also indirectly, e.g., interpersonal trust may accompany egalitarian patterns of participation that influence health-relevant state policies pert aining to education, transportation or the distribution of wealth. In like manner, social capital is thought to promote the performance and character of political institutions (e.g. Putnam et al., 1993; Rice and Sumberg, 1997; Veenstra and Lomas, 1999; Coburn, 2000) and economic growth and development (e.g. Helliwell and Putnam, 1995; Knack and Keefer, 1997; Temple, 1998; Woolcock, 1998, 2001). …

Raves, risks and the ecstacy panic: A case study in the subversive nature of moral regulation

Abstract: This paper interrogates the anxieties which crystallized in the summer of 2000 concerning the uses and abuses of ecstacy at local raves in Toronto, Ontario. Canada. Despite the fact that concerted efforts were made on the part of a host of "moral entrepreneurs" to extinguish raves held on city-owned property, Toronto's rave communities were able to subvert the moralizing discourse designed to characterize them "at risk," simultaneously manipulating the same discursive technique to amplify the risks associated with terminating "legal" raves in the city of Toronto. Conceptually situated in the sociology of moral regulation, the analysis explicates the fluid character of media discourses and the dynamic interplay of social agents in the social construction, and subversion, of moral panic. Resume: Ce memoire etudie I'anxiete qui s'est cristallisee a I'ete 2000 quant a la prise et a l'abus de prise d'ecstasy lors des raves qui ont lieu a Toronto en Ontario (Canada). Malgre les efforts concentres de plusieurs [much greater than]autorites morales[much less than] qui cherchaient a eliminer les raves se produisant sur les terrains appartenant a la ville, les groupes de raveurs ont pu detourner le discours moralisateur qui les presentait comme un risque pour la societe, tout en manipulant la meme technique de discours pour amplifier les risques associes a I'interdiction des raves [much greater than]legales[much less than] dans la ville de Toronto. Concue sur le plan de la sociologie des reglements moraux. cette analyse explique le caractere fluide du discours des medias et l'interaction dynamique des agents sociaux dans la construction sociale et la subversion de la panique morale. ...in every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organized and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose role is to ward off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its ponderous, formidable materiality ... [but] as history constantly teaches us, discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is a thing for which and by which there is struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized (Foucault, 1981:52-53). Introduction Set within the discursive context of a series of media stories surrounding the deaths of three young adults who had ingested the designer drug ecstacy in 1999, the summer of 2000 was witness to heightened media attention concerning rave dance parties held in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Following the initial coverage in 1999, Toronto city council unanimously passed "The Protocol for the Operation of Safe Dance Events/Raving" at the urging of the Toronto Dance Safety Committee. The document offered several guidelines designed with the intention of regulating raves held in Toronto, placing particular importance on the search for venues which offered adequate facilities for the large number of people who attend raves. While The Protocol was generally accepted by organizations representing rave communities as a progressive and valuable instrument capable of facilitating a greater degree of safety for ravers, when the Ontario coroner's inquest into the death of Toronto university student Allan Ho was init iated in May, 2000, Toronto's Mayor introduced a motion which sought to ban raves from city-owned property. In the ensuing weeks, raves became an object of contestation and debate, as several city representatives intensified their efforts to terminate raves under the auspices of the "Entertainment Gatherings Protocol." The discursive vehicle through which this project was carried out, however, evaded a direct focus on the leisure space of the rave, alternatively highlighting the purported dangers associated with the use and distribution of ecstacy. The city's shifting mandate provides an interesting case study for the sociologies of moral regulation and moral panic. …

From deserving victims to 'masters of confusion': Redefining refugees in the 1990s

Abstract: Immigration, crime, and social welfare are generally regarded as separate issues, both by government officials and by scholars. We show in this article that much is gained by studying the ways in which these dimensions of governance, at the levels of both government and populist fears, come together, intermixing and constituting new 'hybrid' objects that can be used to govern a number of fields. Fears about 'welfare fraud,' about 'bogus refugees,' and about racialized crime -- fears which on their own had considerable power -- merged together in the mid-1990s in a way that had particularly dire effects on Toronto's Somali community. We here analyze both the general, national features of the panics and concerns in question, and the ways in which they affected this particular community, seeking thereby to call for increased attention to hybrid governance -- the ways in which, for example, immigration policy is increasingly being governed through crime. Resume: L'immigration, le crime et le bien-etre social sont generalement consideres comme des questions differentes, tant par les officiels des gouvernements que par les erudits. Nous demontrons dans cet article qu'il y a grand interet a etudier la facon dont ces dimensions de gouvernance, tant au niveau du gouvernement que des peurs populistes, se recoupent et se melangent pour constituer de nouveaux objets [much less than] hybrides [much greater than] pouvant etre utilises pour regir un certain nombre de domaines. Les craintes au sujet des [much less than] fraudeurs dc bien-etre social [much greater than], les [much less than] pseudo-refugies [much greater than] et du crime a caractere raciste -- des craintes qui, chacune separement, avaient deja un pouvoir considerable -- se sont fusionnees ensemble au milieu des annees 1990 d'une facon qui a eu des effets notoires sur la communaute somalienne de Toronto. Nous analysons ici a la fois les caracteristiques generales et nationales des paniques et des inquietu des en cause, ainsi que les facons dont cette collectivite particuliere a ete affectee par elles, cherchant par le fait meme a porter davantage attention a la gouvernance hybride -- par exemple, les facons par lesquelles la politique d'immigration est de plus en plus gouvernee par l'intermediaire du banditisme. ********** In the mid-1990s, Canada witnessed a process by which the figures of the 'welfare cheat' and the 'bogus refugee,' constructed through official crackdowns and populist panics about welfare and about immigration, converged upon a particular group, refugee claimants. The resulting composite figure of the 'bogus' refugee on welfare, thought to be craftily engaged in defrauding immigration and social services simultaneously, was then mobilized in ways that disproportionately affected a number of visible minorities. We will trace in this article the emergence of these two figures in their separate institutional and discursive contexts and then go on to document how they came together in the mid-1990s, paying particular attention to the Somali community in Toronto. In the process we shall demonstrate that the law-and-order discourses on crime that have become popular in recent years in Canada and in other countries, have effects well beyond the field of criminal justice policy. Immigration policy, and especially pol icies and practices governing deportations, is being re-shaped under the banner of crime (Pratt, 2000). Somalis are among the groups that have had the misfortune of being nominated for the spot created by this explosive mixture of concerns about what has come to be known, in a peculiar appropriation of feminist language, 'system abuse.' In more recent years concerns about the Somalis have given way to mini-panics focussed on other groups (economic migrants from China, for instance), and no doubt other groups of 'undeserving' claimants will arise in the future. …

Real Science: What It Is, and What It Means. (Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus)

Abstract: John Ziman, Real Science: What It Is, and What It Means, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, 399 pp. Ziman is one of the most senior British contributors to science and society studies, and is well known for his earlier classics, Public Knowledge (1968) and Reliable Knowledge (1978). Real Science is a thorough and provocative treatise, arguably his most informative to date. The recent "Sokal hoax" revisited the juxtaposition of earlier generations about the rational foundations of science promoted by Nagel and Hempel versus the non-rational or constructionist foundations suggested by Kuhn and Feyerabend. Without referring to the particulars of the Sokal case, Ziman advances a more realistic characterization of the social nature of science required by the "science wars" in which he says "sociology has superseded philosophy at the theoretical core of 'science studies."' Ziman offers a naturalistic account of science. It is a set of interrelated communities governed by normative structures that check the originality and often-transient irrationality of specific innovations with sets of collective practices that subject novel claims to critical evaluation. Sound familiar? The close tie between the cognitive elements that make up the content of science and the collective process of creating and evaluating knowledge is pure Mertonian, and it is one of the core suppositions of the book. Ziman offers a more exhaustive analysis than Merton of the kinds of knowledge produced by research and the range of work falling along a broad continuum from work based solely on curiosity, "pure science," and research mandated by R&D policies. Often the key elements of the scientific ethos -- Communalism or public knowledge, Universalism, Detachment, Originality, and Scepticism (which culminate in 'CUDOS,' i.e. the reward structure) can go off the rails under the new conditions of knowledge production. The academic mode of production which characterized the British and German universities from 1850 to 1950 -- individual male scientists pursing their own projects, working in relative isolation with little external funding, teaching in tenured academic positions to support their research -- has increasingly been replaced by "post-academic science." Here, teams of increasingly specialized experts, men and women, often work in diverse labs on renewable 5 year contracts and keep in contact with a network over the internet, pursuing research questions set by private interests and national policies, working under tightly scrutinized spending regimes, often resulting in the acquisition of proprietary knowledge, and in a constant search for further funds to support postdocs and on-going projects. The post-academic scientist becomes bureaucrat-administrator, and is increasingly liable to be working in a non-academic setting. In Canada there is evidence from two cases that commercial interests have eroded some traditional academic values, including academic freedom. Dr. Nancy Olivieri was fired from her lab position in 1997 at the Hospital for Sick Children, a division of the University of Toronto, after blowing the whistle on potentially dangerous side effects found in preliminary tests of a drug the research on which had been funded by Apotex Ltd. Her actions were directly contrary to a contract signed by Olivieri giving the company control over release of results. Such contracts directly limit academic freedom but have become common as universities rely increasingly on the private sector to staff the universities' research capabilities. It was only after the CAUT intervened with the assistance of international medical researchers that the university supported her demands for protection of academic freedom, re-instated her and assisted in her $150,000 legal fees (see Turk 2000). …

The Canadian Rave Scene and Five Theses on Youth Resistance

Abstract: This paper identifies and focuses on two areas of concern in the extant literature on youth culture in Canada. The first is that analyses of contemporary developments in Canadian youth culture tend not to consider the potential contributions of the recent 'post-subculture' or 'club-culture' stands of theory that have emerged out of Britain. The second is that there is a relative lack of empirical research on the 'rave subculture' in Canada--a middle class culture of youth renowned for amphetamine drug-use, an interest in computer-generated music known as 'Techno,' and attendance at all-night 'rave' dance parties--a surprising absence considering the group's sizable membership, and the notoriety the group has received in popular media, government-related health reports, and scholarly work on youth in other countries. These concerns are addressed in this paper through a discussion of the post-subculture/clubculture tradition and its relationship to classical American and British theory, a report of results from an ethnographic study of the rave subculture in southern Ontario conducted from 1995-1998, and an analysis of the study's findings drawing on both traditional and contemporary perspectives on youth (presented as 'five theses on resistance'). The paper concludes with a summary of the study's contributions to theory and research on youth culture both in Canada and generally, and with recommendations for future work in the area. Resume: Dans cet article, l'auteur s'attarde sur deux champs d'intereft dans la recherche sur la culture des jeunes au Canada, Le premier champ d'interet traite du fait que l'analyse des developpements contemporains de la culture des jeunes au Canada a tendance a ignorer les contributions des recherches empiriques recentes provenant principalement de la Grande-Bretagne dans les domaines theoriques de la post-sous-culture et de la clubculture. Le deuxieme champ d'interet traite du fait qu'il y a une lacune par rapport aux recherches empiriques dans le domaine de la sous-culture de la rave au Canada--un phenomene chez les jeunes de la classe moyenne caracterise par la consommation de drogues (amphetamines), un interet dans la musique developee a partir de logiciel d'ordinateur connu sous la rubrique 'Techno' et une participation dans des parties de danse rave durant toute la nuit--une lacune surprenante compte-tenu du nombre important des jeunes raveurs qui participent, la notoriete que les jeunes raveurs recoi vent dans les medias, les rapports de sante des gouvernements, et les recherches sur le sujet des jeunes raveurs a l'exterieur du Canada. Ces points font l'objet de cet article par l'entremise d'une discussion des caracteristiques de la post-sous-culture et de la clubculture et de leur relation avec les theories classiques americanies et britanniques, un rapport des resultats d'une etude ethnographique de la sous-culture de la rave dans le sud de l'Ontario entreprise de 1995 a 1998, et une analyse des resultats de l'etude a partir des perspectives traditionnelles et contemporaines sur les jeunes (presentee sous cinq theses sur la resistance). Cet article se termine avec un sommaire des contributions theoriques sur la culture des jeunes au Canada et ailleurs et avec des recommandations pour les recherches futures dans ce domaine. ********** Although a tradition of ethnographic research on youth subcultures in Canada has emerged since the 1980s, one of the most prominent and historically significant subcultures of the 1990s and now the millennium, the 'rave' subculture, has generally been overlooked for its substantive and theoretical importance in Canadian youth studies. The lack of research on rave culture--a middle. class culture of youth renowned for amphetamine drug-use, an interest in computer-generated music known as 'Techno', and attendance at all-night 'rave' dance parties--is surprising considering the notoriety the group has received in popular media, in government-related health reports, and in scholarly work on youth in other countries. …

The governance of universities: What is the role of the university in the knowledge society?

Abstract: Introduction The question of the governability of science cannot be posed in isolation from the question of the governance of the university. In recent times there has been a tremendous change in the nature of governance in society more generally and within the institution of the university the nature of governance has also undergone considerable transformation. The twin pillars of modernity, the university and parliament, today exist in very different circumstances. Governance has become increasingly more complex, multi-levelled and shared as more and more actors are drawn into the arenas of power. Along with these changes there has also occurred a tremendous transformation in the nature, status and function of knowledge in society. Knowledge is no longer incidental to the economy and state but has become an integral part of what is now in effect a scientized society. As science become more and more subject to demands for governance, the university as one of the principal knowledge producing institutions inevitably comes under the scrutiny of the state and its regulatory agencies. The governance of universities has thus become a topical issue today. In the UK the Dearing Report on the restructuring of British higher education speaks of a new 'social contract' between the university, the state, industry and families (Dearing, 1997). But more fundamental than this tendential crisis of legitimacy that comes with the societal question of how universities should be governed is the question of how universities govern themselves. What does the future hold for academic self-governance? The western university, it should be recalled, was itself one of the most important innovators in self-governance. Universities have always been based on some degree of academic governance, which has been the institutional expression of the 'republican' principle of the autonomy of knowledge in modernity and which goes back to the medieval origins of the university as a corporate organization modelled on the medieval guilds. The two main models of academic governance were professorial self-governance and, from the 1960s as a result of student power, shared governance. Even in the very much changed circumstances of the present time, most universities are still run on some degree of academic self-governance in which professors and students have a dominant voice in the governance of the university. However, on the one side this is very much diminished as a result of neo-managerialism which has undermined academic self-governance and, on the other side, the external environment is imposing new demands on the univ ersity to be more accountable. The result is that academic self-governance is mostly ceremonial, lacking any real basis. The question of governance in fact arises in the context of a crisis of legitimacy for the university. For the first time academic freedom in the university is in question as is in society more generally the autonomy of science. To what extent is academic self-governance an anachronistic myth inappropriate to the knowledge society and mass democracies? Is the freedom of science an illusion that is better given up in view of the emergence of new cultures of knowledge which cannot be left to scientists and academics? Has the age of the university passed with the demise of the promises of universalistic conceptions of knowledge? In the following I shall attempt to deal with some of these questions. Firstly, I look at the university as a site of governance. Secondly, I discuss the question of the alleged crisis of the university. The third section moves onto the question of the changing nature of governance of universities. In the fourth section I consider the possibility of a new model of governance for the university. By way of conclusion, some remarks are made on the idea of technological citizenship as a task for the university to realize. University and Self-Governance The university has always been linked to the governance of knowledge. …

Forest Management and Advisory Groups in Alberta: An Empirical Critique of an Emergent Public Sphere

Abstract: The normative ideal of a public sphere, as defined by Habermas, is the realm of social life where private people come together as a public to engage in debate over the general rules that govern our lives. This debate is grounded in procedural rationality where bracketing of social difference, inclusiveness, and the force of the better argument provide the basis for mutual understanding and decision making. These ideals are used to determine the extent to which 12 forest resource advisory groups in Alberta achieve the standards of a public sphere. Results from interview and survey research show that, minimally, public advisory groups qualify as a public sphere and are engaged in representative thinking. Control of these groups by forest companies, however, tends to de-politicize the deliberative process through information management and bureaucratic constraints. Some recommendations are made that may serve to re-energize civic debate over the future of our national forests. Resume: L'ideal normatif d'une sphere publique, tel que defini par Hebermas, est domaine de la vie sociale ou les membres du public se rassemblent pour discuter des regles generales qui gouernent not vies. Ce debat est ancre dans one rationalite procedurale par laquelle la mise entre parenthese des differences sociale, I'inclusion et la force du meilleur argument forment la base d'une comprehension mutuelle Ct des prises de decisions. Ces criteres ideaux sont utilises pour determiner dans quelle mesure les 12 groupes consultatifs sur les ressources forestieres en Alberta verificent les criteres qui caracterisent une sphere publique. Des entrevues et des recherches sur le terrain montrent que les groupes consultatifs repondent a ces criteres et refletent une pensee representative seulement de maniere minimale. Le controle de ces groupes par les compagnies forestieres, capendant, tend a depolitiser le processus de deliberation par la gestion de I'information et les contraintes bureaucratiques. Cet article conti ent des recommandations qui pourront servir a raviver les debats civiques concernant l'avenir de nos forets nationales Introduction Under what conditions can private people come together and discuss issues of public concern where rational argument, not social status, form the basis of informed consensus? This is the question Jurgen Habermas addresses in his attempt to develop the historical category of the public sphere (Habermas, 1989). Based originally in 17th and 18th Century Europe, the public sphere was manifested most ideally in the coffee houses of England. In modem society, however, the public sphere is thought of not as a single realm of publicness and openness but more pragmatically as a variety of institutions and formal procedures for precipitating a public sphere. According to theorists such as McCarthy (1992), the boundaries and structures of the places where debates about issues of public concern take place are influenced by history and culture and are therefore fluid. They are negotiated by specific communities according to a set of common needs and values. Some recent articles describing the role of deliberative democracy in managing a range of Canadian-based development projects, while highlighting their successes and failures, suggest a critical role for these public spheres (Richardson et al, 1993; Ali, 1997; Mehta, 1997; McDaniels et al., 1999). Another example of these modern public spheres can be found in the forest resource advisory groups of Alberta. These groups appear to meet some of the basic criteria of a public sphere in that they purport to provide space for a representative sample of citizens to become informed about and debate the veracity of existing forest management practices. In this paper, I undertake an empirically informed normative critique of these forest resource advisory groups as a public sphere. I begin by describing the category of a public sphere in historical context and then I delineate some of the contemporary revisions to Habermas's ideal that, arguably, renders it more flexible in confronting some of the complexities of modern society. …

Changes in Identity Attitudes as Reflections of Social and Cultural Change

Abstract: An established tradition in sociological research, trend analysis is exemplified by studies relating change in social attitudes to change in the behaviour of collectivities or to the social structural location of respondents. Employing data from Canadian research in affect control theory (a mathematical formalization of classic identity theories in sociological social psychology), the study reported in this paper is the first to connect changes in attitudes for social identities to social and cultural change. The data on identity attitudes consist of mean EPA (evaluation, potency, and activity) semantic differential ratings of 102 social identities spanning a broad range of social institutions. The samples are derived from 1981 and 1995 cohorts of a medium size Ontario University. While the regression of 1995 on 1981 mean EPA values reveals that collective attitudes for social identities are quite stable over time, the residual variance is sufficiently large to suggest that important changes in identity attit udes have taken place. We identity these changes and interpret them in terms of social and cultural change in Canadian society between our two surveys. For example, we connect the loss of status and power of religious identities to the decline of organized religion in the lives of young Canadians, the decrease in the stigmatizing of homosexual identities to an increase in tolerance for alternative sexual orientations and lifestyles, and the general loss of status and agency of political identities to an increase in the disenchantment of Canadians with the integrity and effectiveness of the political system. Resume: Une tradition etablie dans la recherche sociologique, l'analyse de tendances ("trend analysis"), est illustree par les recherches liant les changements d'attitudes sociales aux changements de comportement collectif ou a la position des repondants dans la structure sociale. Utilisant les donnees d'une recherche Canadienne portant sur la "affect control theory" (une formalisation mathematique des theories d'identites dans la psychologie sociale sociologique), l'etude presentee dans cet expose est le premier a lier les changements en attitude d'identites sociales aux changements sociaux et culturels. Les donnees sur les attitudes d'identites consistent en un indice differentiel semantique moyen deEPA ("Evaluation, Potency, and Activity") etabli sur 102 identites sociales couvrantun grand nombre d'institutions sociales. Les echantillons sont extraits de cohortes d'une universite Ontarienne de taille moyenne en l'annee 1981 et l'annee 1995. Bien que la regression des valeurs moyennes de EPA en 1995 compara tivement a 1981 nous revele que les attitudes collectives pour les identites sociales sont stables a long terme, la variance residuelle est suffisamment elevee pour nous indiquer que des changements importants en attitude d'identites ont eu lieu. Nous identifions et interpretons ces changements en terme de changements sociaux et culturels dans la societe canadienne entre nos deux sondages. Par exemple, nous lions la perte de statut et de pouvoir d'identites religieuses au declin de la religion dans la vie des jeunes gens Canadiens; le declin de la stigmatisation de l'identite homosexuelle a l'augmentation de la tolerance pour une orientation sexuelle alternative et aux modes de vie; et la perte generale de statut et de pouvoir des identites politiques a l'augmentation du desenchantement des Canadiens face a l'integrite et l'efficacite du systeme politique. ********** Trend analysis--the monitoring and assessment of public attitudes and behaviour by repeated surveys of independent samples from the same general population--is an established tradition in sociological research. This tradition is exemplified by research relating collective attitudes to the behaviour of collectivities (Hill 1981)--e.g., change in sex-role attitudes to increased participation of women in higher education and the labour force, as well as by studies relating attitude change to social structure (Kiecolt 1988)--e. …

A view on Bourdieu's legacy: Sens pratique v. hysteresis

Abstract: 1. Introduction Bourdieu's last publications (1) before his recent death in January have been the object of considerable attention and controversy (Alexander, 2000; Callon, 1999; Critique, 1995; Grignon, 1996; Grumberg & Schweisguth, 1996; Hamel, 1997 & 1998; Magazine Litteraire, 1998; Lahire, 1999; Martucelli, 1999; Mayer, 1995; Mongin & Roman, 1998; Pinto, 1998; Sciences Humaines, 2000; Verdes-Leroux, 1998). The controversy has not always been about Bourdieu's sociological work as such. Rather, it has been about the conciliation between, on one hand, the content of his sociology and, on the other hand, his numerous interventions in the French public and political debate in the past ten years,(2) and Bourdieu's explicit ambition to embrace the standpoint of the French "intellectuel."(3) The object of this note is not to nourish the French controversy about Bourdieu as an intellectuel, albeit some of the arguments developed below might shed a new light on the controversy itself. Rather, it aims at highlighting and exploring what, at first sight, seems to be an important shift in the epistemological orientation of Bourdieu' s work or, more precisely, a tension between two distinct positions that he has simultaneously taken about the construction of sociological knowledge and its usefulness for lay people. Bourdieu has certainly been one of the most convincing advocates of the break between sociology and common sense (Bourdieu, Chamboderon & Passeron, 1991). For him the hallmark of ordinary knowledgeability is a sens pratique (Bourdieu, 1980) that is markedly different from sociologists' scholastic posture. While constantly re-affirming the break between sociological knowledge and common sense, Bourdieu's last publications exhibit empirical and methodological characteristics which put into que stion the overarching dichotomy between lay people's sens pratique and sociologists' scholastic posture. 2. Sens Pratique and Scholastic Posture Common sense and social science, for Bourdieu, refer to two radically different kinds of knowledgeability, or modes of relating to the world, namely the practical and the theoretical modes respectively. Lay people's senspratique involves an immediate competence in making sense of the world, but a competence which is, as it were, oblivious to itself (1980: 37), insofar as it does not contain the knowledge of the practices it generates (1980: 175). The practical mode of relating to the social world is a relation of "placid ignorance" [docte ignorance] (1980: 37). Senspratique is based on the correspondence between the objective structures of society and the internalised structures of the habitus, which implies that "the 'choices' of the habitus are accomplished without consciousness of constraint" (Bourdieu 1991: 51). In contrast, social scientists' theoretical or scholastic mode involves a distance via-a-vis the immediate intelligibility of the world (Bourdieu, Chamboderon & Passeron, 1991). Theoretical knowledge "owes a number of its most essential properties to the fact that the conditions under which it is produced are not that of practice" (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 70). The sociologist must adopt a theoretical or scholastic posture when studying social processes, this posture being fundamentally different from the logic of the agents actually involved in these processes (Ibid. : 69). The sociologist's posture is a disposition to regard his or her experience and practice as an object about which one talks and thinks (Bourdieu, 1997: 74). In his Meditations Pascaliennes (1997), Bourdieu reaffirms that the scholastic disposition is, in his view, the exclusive posture of those who have access to academic and scientific fields. Although the scholastic posture is a "universal anthropological possibility" (Ibid.: 27), which means that scholars and scientists do not in principle have the monopoly of the scholastic posture, the conditions for its development can mainly be found, for Bourdieu, in scientific and intellectual fields. …

Harold Innis in the New Century: Reflections and Refractions. (Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus)

Abstract: Charles R. Acland and William J. Buxton, eds, Harold Innis in the New Century: Reflections and Refractions. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999, 435 pp. Harold Innis in the New Century is a collection of twenty essays that were originally presented at a conference at Concordia University celebrating the 1994 centenary of Harold Innis's birth. The contributors were selected to represent a diversity of engagements and engagement sites. Yet, the book reads as an integrated whole--in part because the contributors share a common focus on Innis as a public intellectual and in part because they share a model of historiography that restores Innis's writings to their context while allowing contributors to use their reflections on Innis to explore the place of intellectual practice in the twenty-first century. Read in this way, the "work of Innis becomes less like a repository to be mined for ideas than a theoretical shunting point for refracting and juxtaposing various perspectives" (p. 25). Like Innis before them, the contributors to this collection reflect on the impact of ideas produced by academics on social and cultural transformation. And, like those of Innis, these reflections must be read against the backdrop of the very different intellectual and social contexts in which they were written. It is no surprise, then, that this reflection on Innis's legacy challenges past interpretations, including the view that his most lasting legacy would be his work on political economy and economic history, especially Canadian economic history (e.g., The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History, The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy) and the "early" Innis/"late" Innis approach to understanding his intellectual legacy that privileges discontinuities over continuities. In their place this book offers an assessment of the meaning and relevance of Innis's writings for today's world that highlights his concern with the role of the intellectual in the crisis of co ntemporary culture. By focusing attention on Innis's understanding of connections among the intellectual, culture, communications, monopolies of knowledge, and intellectual present-mindedness, these essays accomplish the two goals set out in the book's subtitle: They detail how Innis influenced intellectual practice and organization in Canada and they identify key points where his ideas, appropriately extended, continue to engage intellectuals and social activists. The book is divided into three parts. The eight essays of Part One, "Reflections on Innis," examine the development of his thought, the changing climate for the reception of his ideas, and his approach to intellectual practice. …

Does Disorganized Capitalism Disorganize Corporate Networks

Abstract: This paper explores how three developments associated with capitalist disorganization reshaped the Canadian corporate network between 1976 and 1996: 1/transnationlization of capital, 2/ deregulation of the financial sector, and 3/reforms of the business community's corporate governance norms. Although the network became sparser and carried more by outside directors, the distinctive pattern of transnational investment did not in itself "disorganize" it. Instead, the network's center of gravity shifted toward domestic interests operating on a transnational scale and interlocked mainly through outside directorships. The main sources for the loosening of intercorporate ties were financial-sector deregulation and especially corporate governance reforms. Transnational corporations now form the center of a sparser and looser network of information flows. In disorganized capitalism, the relation between banks and corporations becomes more episodically enacted and the old nationally-organized axis of finance capital fades--particularly as new governance norms deter bankers from sitting on corporate boards. A looser, more globalized network suits the new relation between finance and industry. Resume: Cet article nous montre comment trois developpments, qui sont associes a la desorganisation capitaliste, ont remodele le reseau canadien des entreprises entre 1976 et 1996 : 1/la transnationalisation du capital, 2/la deregulation du secteur financier, et 3/ les reformes des normes de controle de la communaute des entreprises de commerce. Bien que le reseau devint plus clairseme et qu'il fut davantage soutenu parles directeurs extemes, la physionomie distincte d'investissement trans-national, en elle-meme, ne le > pas. Au contraire, le centre de gravite du reseau se touma vers des interets nationaux qui fonctionnaient sur une echelle trans-nationale et qui etaient principalement imbriques par l'ensemble des directeurs externes. Les principales sources de l'assouplissement des liens interentreprises etaient la deregulation du secteur financier et surtout les reformes du controle des entreprises. Lesentreprises trans-nationales constituent desormais lecentre d'un reseau de flux d'informat ions plus clairseme et plus assoupli. En capitalisme desorganise, la relation entre les banques et les entreprises s'etablit mains souvent, et le viell axe national du capital financier s'affaiblit--surtout lorsque des nouvelles normes de controle dissuadent les banquiers de sieger au sein des conseils d'entrepnse. Un reseau mains tendu et davantage globalise convient a Ia nouvelle relation entre la finance et I'industrie. ********** One of the most important political-economic transformations in the closing decades of the twentieth century was what Lash and Urry (1987) have called "the end of organized capitalism"--the uneven transition in the world system' s center from a capitalism more or less structured around national corporate economies regulated by national states to a more globalized capitalism subject to less effective national regulation. The end of nationally organized capitalism is, of course, only one side of a reorganization of capital into a more globalized field of accumulation, within which the policies of particular states are disciplined both by the threat of capital strikes and by neoliberal norms enforced by institutions such as the World Trade Organization (Teeple, 2000; Robinson and Harris, 2000). Lash and Urry (pp. 5-6) include an array of structural and cultural changes under the rubric of this transition. Our focus here is upon the social network that is formed when directors of large corporations sit on multipl e directorates. Corporate networks have knit the leading companies and capitalists of each national economy into more or less coherent structures of economic power, and although they do not in any sense underwrite a "class conspiracy" they have enabled the coordination and direction of capital accumulation across certain interlocked firms while promoting the formation of a solidaristic "business community" within the capitalist class's top tier. …

From Organisational Theory to the New Communitarianism of Amitai Etzioni

Abstract: Introduction Across a wide range of social commentators and social disciplines there has been little doubt that the thoughts and sentiments of Amitai Etzioni have influenced a communitarian attempt to establish a new moral order within which modern society should develop. Ruth Levitas (1998), to name but one, points to the characteristic centrality Etzioni gives to the family as well as to community. On another level, Finn Bowring (1997) draws upon Etzioni's calls for the revival of individual responsibility and social morality as a means to create social cohesion. Both recognise that it is precisely this emphasis upon family, community, social discipline, obligation and responsibility as opposed to an indiscriminate conferral of rights that is at the heart of new communitarianism and its growing popularity. Nevertheless, what has not been commonly recognised -- and what has not been fully explored -- is from where Amitai Etzioni actually drew his inspiration. How did he arrive at such an influential social philosophy, and what factors affected its formulation? Through a comparison of Etzioni's later works with those of earlier times, it is my contention that Etzioni has not said anything new or innovative. Nor has he provided a social prescription that actually traverses the old political and socio-economic boundaries. More to the point, it is possible to show how Etzioni continues to reiterate the thoughts and impressions he had gained from his functionalist days as an organisational theorist during the 1950s and 1960s: the only difference being that the earlier micro-theories of organisations have now been transposed to fit a macro-theory about the perceived ills and remedies pertinent to contemporary 'mainstream' society. Although it has been pointed out before that organisational theorists fundamentally restrict themselves to the search for efficiency within the confines of North American relations of capital (cf Allen, 1975), it is not a charge that has been rigorously applied to Amitai Etzioni. Least of all to The Spirit of the Community (1995) and The New Golden Rule (1997). With a deeper analysis of the specific methodology employed, it is again possible to reveal the reliance Etzioni puts upon his sociological origins and thus expose the underlying limitations of his societal projections. Moreover, it will become apparent that this form of methodological analysis is myopically used to substantiate an argument for the promotion of a normative society remarkably reminiscent of America in the 1950s. Finally in this 'Note on Society,' I will discuss the ramifications of Etzioni's approach. Such theoretical and methodological limitations are bound to affect the efficacy and applicability of the communitarian ideal. Especially when the revival of a sense of community is still reliant upon the relatively unfettered continuation of a competitive market. American Society in the 1950s: A 'Baseline' Templet When introducing The Essential Communitarian Reader (1998), Etzioni succinctly defines the communitarian movement as he understands it. He is at pains to distinguish the new communitarians from the communitaranism of the nineteenth century by distancing his position from the old blinkered "stress upon the significance of social forces, of community, of social bonds" (1998:x) and of the elements that individualistic theory neglected. Instead, he argues, new communitarians concern themselves with "the balance between social forces and the person, between community and autonomy, between the common good and liberty, between individual rights and social responsibilities" (ibid). Elsewhere, Etzioni sees himself -- and, for that matter, this new form of communitarianism -- as a responsive harbinger of social equilibrium locked in a quest to revitalise society through a unique blending of some elements in "tradition (order based on virtues) with elements of modernity (well protected autonomy)" (Etzioni, 1997:xviii). …

Jettisoned by Design? The Truncated Employment Relationship of Customer Sales and Service Agents under Airline Restructuring1

Abstract: Numerical flexibility strategies are increasingly being adopted by employers in their quest to remain competitive and prosper under current economic conditions. Despite a flourishing interest in labour distancing strategies, there nevertheless remains a dearth of in-depth information on, and understanding of, these strategies and their implications for white-collar workers and for the chang- ing nature and conditions of women's white-collar work in post-industrial society. Through a study of the contracting out of Air Canada customer sales and service agents' work under airline industry restructuring, this article examines employment relationship degradation and highlights how computer and telecommunications technologies are used to spatially reorganize work. It also gives a detailed account of workers' resistance to the truncation of the employment relationship. In de- veloping an analysis of the degradation of women's sales and service white-collar employment, the article provides important insights into the larger process of growing inequality and polarization in industrialized societies, an issue that has been a long-standing concern of sociologists.

The rise and decline of Canadian Labour/ 1960 to 2000: Elites, power, ethnicity and gender

Abstract: Unions may be viewed as a central institution of capitalist democracies. This paper updates aspects of Porter's work on labour and the labour elite in Canada (1965: Ch. 10-11). Conventional measures indicate that the power of the labour movement in Canada increased after Porter studied it around 1960 but that it has subsequently declined. Support from ideological and state elites seems to have followed a similar rise and decline pattern. Foreign influence has been considerably reduced. The movement remains highly decentralized. In contrast to the situation in 1960, unions are now notably female, white collar and public sector. A partial study of the social characteristics of the labour elite indicates that its ethnic origins have become less British and more French Canadian. The "other ethnic" proportion of the elite has been stable. Virtually no visible minority representation was detected. Given changes in the ethno-racial composition of the population, it would appear that under-representation of the non Charter Group categories has increased significantly over the past four decades. Conversely, female representation in the elite has grown substantially. Resume: Les syndicats peuvent etre consideres comme une institution centrale des democraties capitalistes. Cet article remet a jour certains aspects des travaux de Porter sur l'elite ouvriere au Canada (1965: chapitres 10-11). Les mesures conventionnelles indiquent que le pouvoir du mouvement ouvrier au Canada s'est accru apres les etudes de Porter aux environs de 1960, mais qu'il a connu un declin par la suite. Le soutien des elites ideologiques et d'etat semble avoir suivi un schema d'essor et de declin identique. L'influence de l'etranger s'est considerablement reduite. Le mouvement demeure largement decentralize. En contraste avec la situation de 1960, les syndicats comprennent maintenant une majorite de femmes, de cols blancs et d'employes du secteur public. Une etude Partielle des caracteristiques sociales de I'elite ouvriere indique queses origines ethniques sont devenues moins britanniques et davantage canadiennes-francaises. La proportion d'autres ethnics au sein de l'elite est restee stable. Pratiquernent aucune representation d'une minorite visible n'a detectee. Etant donne les changements dans la composition ethno-raciale de la population, il semblerait que la sous-representation des categories autres que celles du Groupe de la Charte (c'est-a-dire britannique et francais) s'est singulierementaccrue au cours des quatre dernieres decen flies. Inversement larepresentation des femmes au sein de l'elite a augmente de maniere significative. Introduction Unions may be regarded as a central institution of capitalist democracies. If unions are strong, social democratic parties, class politics and the welfare state are also likely to be strong. The converse is true if unions are weak (Sartori, 1969; Stephens, 1979; Korpi, 1983; Martin, 1986; Myles, 1989; Esping-Andersen, 1990). Unions and related cooperative institutions also have a variety of beneficial effects on the overall economy (Freeman and Medoff, 1984; Freeman, 1997; Hicks et al, 1998), as well as helping to reduce income inequality. (For Canada, see Swidinsky et al, 1991; Krahn and Lowe, 1998: 323; for U.S., see Card, 2001; for OECD, see Kahn, 2000). The reduction of income inequality, in turn, appears to help reduce crime (Hsieh et al, 1993; Allen, 1996), increase economic growth (Alesing et al, 1996; Rodriguez, 2000) and improve life expectancy (Wilkinson, 1996 but see Gravelle, 1998). Unions also help to reduce racial, gender and political inequality (Wunnava et al, 1999; Radcliff et al, 2000) and have taken the lead in struggles against social injustices such as discrimination against blacks in the United States and discrimination against Catholics in Northern Ireland (Cradden, 1993). They have also contributed to the democratization process in a variety of ways (Drache et al, 1992: 117). …

Actor-System Dynamics Theory and its Application to the Analysis of Modern Capitalism

Abstract: Les AA. se penchent sur la theorie de la dynamique du systeme d'acteurs (actor-system dynamics - ASD) en presentant un apercu reactualise de cette theorie. Ils presentent toute une serie de concepts essentiels pour la description de la dynamique et la construction du modele dans l'analyse du systeme social. Ensuite ils decrivent plusieurs concepts cle de l'ASD en relation avec le capitalisme en tant que systeme social dynamique et complexe.

Information and Communication Technologies: Bugs in the Generational Ointment

Abstract: The uses and impacts of information and communications technologies (ICTs), are not smooth, linear or fairy-tale like in dusting society with benefits. In development, adoption, uses and impacts, technologies shape, and are shaped by, social relations and social structures. Generational relations are part of the processes by which ICTs become products, symbols, social glue, and social schism. A generational system of relations shapes how technologies shape us, our identities and social structures. The intricate relation of technologies to generation has yet to be explored sociologically. In this paper, ICTs and generations are unpacked. Bugs are found in the generational ointment of ICTs that are explored in layers: -- ICTs may reconcile the impossible contradictions of generation, and of life course; -- ICTs may promote social cohesion among generations; -- ICTs may ease the transition from a labour/capital to a knowledge-based society; -- punctuated succession of technologies may lead to uneven relations of generations to technologies, to discontinuous impacts on generations. Data from different sources are woven together to reveal the intricate patterns of relations of technologies to generations. Resume: L'utilisation des technologies d'information et des communications (TCI) et les effets de celles-ci ne sont pas simples, ni lineaires ou feeriques dans le sens qu'elles envoutent la societe au moyen d'avantages. Au cours de leur developpement, de leur adoption, de leur utilisation et sous leurs effets, les technologies influent sur les relations et les structures sociales - tout en en subissant l'influence. Les relations generationnelles font partie des processus grace auxquels les TIC deviennent produits, symboles, fibre sociale et schisme social. Un systeme de relations generationnelles faconne la maniere que les technologies nous faconnent, ainsi que nos identites et nos structures sociales. Les delicates relations entre technologies et generation n'ont pas encore explorees d'un point de vue sociologique. Dans cet article, TIC et generations sont devoilees. On trouve des bogues dans l'onguent de la generation des TIC qui sont explores en couches: -- les TIC peuvent reconcilier l'impossible, les contradictions de generation et le cours de la vie; -- les TIC peuvent faire la promotion d'une cohesion sociale entre les generations ; -- les TIC peuvent aider la transition d'une societe basee sur la main-d'oeuvre et le capital a une societe basee sur les connaissances ; -- une suite intermittente de technologies peut donner lieu a des relations inegales de generations envers les technologies et a l'interruption des effets sur les generations. Les donnees provenant de differentes sources sont tissees ensemble pour reveler des motifs complexes que forment les relations des technologies et des generations. "He [Prime Minister Tony Blair] asserted that that future of the nation was dependent upon technological success, arguing that computers and the Internet were powering economic growth, and that ensuring Britain was not divided into computer haves and have-nots was fundamental to the building of a fair as well as prosperous society" (Henwood et al., 2000:1) Technologies, particularly information and computing technologies (ICTs), may be enabling to the realization of social and economic goals. They also, without question, pose complex challenges to societies. By politics and policy, ICTs are often seen as magic bullets to social as well as economic problems, as the above example illustrates (1). Yet the social impacts of ICTs remain largely unknown and unmeasured (see Castells, 1999; Franklin, 1992; McDaniel, 2000; Wyatt et al., 2000), and increasingly emerge not as smooth, linear or fairy-tale like in dusting society with benefits. …

The political and economic consequences of Mr. Keynes

Abstract: Unlike most economists, among sociologists and the broader political economy community Keynes has tended to get a good press (so to speak). His virtues are identified as the demonstration of a need for activist governments that manage demand, along with some sort of role in the creation of the postwar welfare state. The recent completion of Skidelsky's extraordinary three volume biography provides an occasion and a resource for reconsidering Keynes's contribution. While Keynes can be correctly identified as an advocate of an activist government, we argue that the limits to the activism he preferred are often neglected.. We argue further that it is a mistake to identify him as a father of the welfare state. Our view is that his intellectual legacy is what we call 'intelligent liberalism.' We specify what we mean by that. ********** There is a good deal of truth in the simple statement that sociology is essentially anti-capitalist. Key concepts of the founding fathers -- alienation, anomie, disenchantment -- demonstrate visceral dislike for the disruptions caused by the dynamism of this mode of production. There is also good reason to think that sociologists are intimidated by the technical challenges of modern, often aggressively mathematical, economics. (2) Since the mainstream of economics can reasonably be viewed as a celebration of capitalism it is not surprising to find hostility to both within sociological writings. The current expression of this is a reflexive antipathy to anything that can be classified as 'neoliberal' thought, along with a generalized distrust of globalization. Consequently, it is scarcely surprising -- especially in light of Mrs. Thatcher's famous declaration that there is no such thing as society -- that conferences now abound that seek to 'reinvent' society in the face of the 'new economy.' There is an exception to this generalized antipathy towards economics. Sociologists have joined with many political scientists in admiring John Maynard Keynes. To some substantial degree this seems to rest on the view that the economic and political stability of richer countries from the end of the second world war through to the early 1970s was a result of Keynesian policies. In his introduction to a much cited collection of essays Peter Hall (1989) identifies Keynes's contribution as the refutation of Say's law. Supply does not create its own demand and this means that demand management by the government is necessary. By forcing recognition of this, Keynesianism "became a component of the class coalitions and political compromises that structured the political economy of the postwar world" (p.7; see also Piore and Sabel, 1984: 73, 91, 252; Marchak, 1991:66). (3) Going beyond this, both Block (1990: 2-3) and Hirst and Zeitlin (1997:223) identify Keynesianism with the enlightenment embodied in the welfare st ate. (4) The publication of the third and final volume of Robert Skidelsky's magisterial biography of Keynes (1983, 1992,2000) both occasions and allows an assessment of such perceptions of this great thinker within both sociology and political science. (5) We focus on three broad issues: first, thanks to Skidelsky's biographical discoveries we are better able to identify the relationship between Keynes's economics and his particular variant of liberalism; second, related to his liberalism are his fundamental economic ideas, and the economic policies he thought were implied by those ideas; third, there is the question of how to appraise Keynes, given the experience of the postwar period as a whole. This latter is a consistent theme in Skidelsky's treatment. Economics as a Last Resort Keynes was born into what Noel Annan (1955) has aptly described as late Victorian England's intellectual aristocracy. Both of his parents came from dissenting stock. Both were able to attend Cambridge University as a result of Gladstone's repeal of the Test Acts. …

Ideology and the middle class: The influence of work and gender in the health care professions

Abstract: With information collected from samples of health care professionals (practicing physicians and pharmacists), and against a back cloth of differing theoretical prognostications, this paper examines the nature and determinants of middle class political ideology in Ontario, Canada. We find significant variations in ideological belief within the professional middle-class. Structural, work related factors were the most important source of attitudes about the distribution of wealth, whereas gender, and other background variables, explained more of the variation in beliefs about welfare and equity policies. The findings are then discussed in terms of: theories of the new middle class; gender and politics; and the composition of political ideology. Resume: Grace aux renseignements provenant d'un echantillon de professionnels de la sante (medecins praticiens et pharmaciens), et sur une toile de fond de pronostications theoriques divergentes, l'auteure de cet article examine la nature et les facteurs determinants de l'ideologie politique de la classe moyenneen Ontario, au Canada. Elle constate qu'il existe des ecarts importants dans les opinions ideologiques au sein professionnels de la classe moyenne. Les facteurs lies au travail et d'ordre structural representaient la plus grande source d'attitudes au sujet de la repartition des richesses tandis que les sexes et les autres variables d'origine expliquaient davantage les ecarts d'opinions sur le bien-etre et les politiques d'equite. Les resultats sont discutes en termes de theories de la nouvelle classe moyenne, de sexe et politique et de composition de l'ideologie politique. Introduction: Thinking about the Middle Class Currently there is no shortage of scholars willing to proclaim that class, both as a concept and as an influence on political events, is dead or, at the very least, in need of major resuscitation (Clark and Lipset, 1991; Clark, Lipset and Rempel, 1993; Pahl, 1993; Grusky and Sorensen, 1998). The general tenor of the argument is that under conditions of 'post modernism' or 'post industrialism,' peoples' interests and identities are no longer anchored in occupational or economic activity. This is evidenced by a decline in class voting and electoral behaviour that corresponds less and less readily to the traditional polarity of the 'left-right' ideological dimension. 'Class,' it is suggested, has been swept away with the rise of 'post-material values' (Inglehart, 1977; 1990). However, amidst these claims, there is, ironically, evidence of a counter trend: growing interest in the nature of one group hitherto neglected in studies of class formation -- the middle class. Indeed, among students of social stratification not necessarily persuaded that class has become an irrelevance, the middle class is now receiving more attention than it ever did in the past. There is little doubt that this development is attributable to its growing size and diversity (Savage et. al., 1992; Butler and Savage, 1995; Langford, 1996). In contrast to a contracting manual working class, the focus of most post war debates about the changing class structure, there has been a huge expansion of professional and managerial positions -- core jobs in any body's classification of the middle class -- over the past two or three decades (Cuneo, 1983; Myles, 1988; Statistics Canada, 1988; Clement and Myles, 1994). However, recognition that the professions and management are key elements in its conceptualization does not imply agreement about the nature of the contemporary middle class. Indeed, recent exercises in re-mapping the middle class highlight distinctions, as well as commonalities, between its two principle occupational components (Goldthorpel982; Torstendahl, and Burrage, 1990). Moreover, debate about the modern middle class is not restricted to its structural determinants: there is a parallel dialogue about its political role and ideological tendencies. …

A Fourth Basic Cultural Competence

Abstract: In this essay, I plan to critically discuss the widespread introduction of the computer into the classroom in modern society. I conceive of modern society as a knowledge society. The specific question I want to raise concerns discourse now dominant among policy makers who push for the extensive use of computers and the internet by students. In particular, do computer skills represent, in addition to the traditional cultural techniques of reading, writing and arithmetic, a fourth cultural technique? The answer to this question I want to advance requires a brief detour. I want to respond to the question about the possible ascendancy of a fourth cultural technique by offering, first, some observations about the notion of the knowledge society and, second, the difference between knowledge and information. The Concept of the Knowledge Society In recent years, the concept of the knowledge society has enjoyed a boom in a number of the developed countries. The academic world has naturally reacted gratefully to this success, although it is by no means certain that the critical potential which has been present in this concept since its introduction (1) has been recognized. Rather, the Ministry of Science and Technology in Germany, for example, has used the concept to increase its own relative departmental strength and to legitimate certain programs, in particular the program "Schools to the Net" (Schulen ans Netz). From a policy point of view, the designation of the present society as the knowledge society is intended to prepare for a restructuring of the educational system. The central tenet of this restructuring, which has already begun, is the view that the ability to manipulate data, in other words, competence with computers and the media, will represent society's crucial human capital in the future. The concept of "the knowledge society "--simply represented a prestigious, forward, looking banner under which the computer might make its entry into schools! In this way, because of the positive connotations attached to the idea of knowledge, the concept of the knowledge society has been able to assume ideological functions. Moreover, in the political sphere it has been used purely descriptively, to designate a certain mega-trend -- namely the growing importance of access to knowledge for social prosperity. In view of this it should be borne in mind that the theory of the knowledge society was originally intended as a critical theory of society. The term "knowledge" was chosen instead of terms such as "information" or "science" to indicate that there are alternative forms of knowledge, that hierarchies develop between these forms of knowledge and that these hierarchies, in marking the status of different areas of knowledge, take on social significance. Against this background processes of the "scientification" of human and social relationships can be described critically -- for example, as the growing disempowerment of the individual through dependence on experts . It also becomes apparent that, compared to the older factors of birth and capital, knowledge is gaining importance as a basis both of social power and of personal opportunities. The power aspect of knowledge also has its application in international relations. To preserve and develop this critical potential of the theory of modern society as a knowledge society it is necessary to work with binary concepts, such as the pair "value and price" in the critique of political economy and the pair "body and corporeality" in the critical theory of human nature. In the theory of the knowledge society the crucial pair of concepts is "knowledge and information". These concepts should be so elaborated that they refer to each other while at the same time preserving a clear difference. To achieve this it is not enough to fall back on the traditional philosophical concept of knowledge, because a strong concept of knowledge (equated with science) has evolved in this tradition since Plato (2) -- a concept which has consolidated the hierarchy of forms of knowledge while discrediting and consigning to obsolescence other forms of knowledge in relation to science. …

The politics of statistics: Variations on a theme

Abstract: Dans cet article, l'A. fait part de ses reflexions concernant l'utilisation de la statistique par les sciences politiques. En confrontant les statistiques dans un contexte politique aux politiques administratives, a la gouvernance et a l'identite des individus, l'A. rapelle que cet outil d'analyse est avant tout un instrument de comprehension sociale, et souligne l'importance de l'enseignement de cette discipline

Reflections on the Legacy of Pierre Bourdieu

Abstract: Pierre Bourdieu wasn't fond of the honour and mundane ritual of celebration. However, his death certainly doesn't give us the opportunity to escape such rituals. I would like to recall a few personal memories, and present some theoretical reflections about Bourdieu's legacy. Pierre Bourdieu the Professor In the Fall of 1970,1 was a doctoral student at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes etudes in Paris. Pierre Bourdieu was my supervisor. He had just published Le Metier de Sociologue (The Craft of Sociology) with J. Chamboredon and J.C. Passeron in 1968, and La Reproduction (Reproduction in Education) with J.C. Passeron in 1970. One of his projects at that time was to finish his theoretical reflections on sociological practice in a book called Esquisse d'une thorie de la pratique (Outline of a Theory of Practice), which would eventually be published in 1972. His two leitmotivs were, in his own words: 1. My academic project is to train the best sociologists in the world; and 2. My intellectual project is to elaborate a theory of practice. I am, as you can understand, enthusiastic. Every week, at the rue de Tournon and, later, boulevard Raspail, he met with his students. He preferred the formula of the seminar, where he presented the results of his research to a smaller audience. While he always had a written paper in front of him, he liked to improvise, introducing questions and injecting comments into his own work. Reflexivity was very much apart of his work. His classes were a kind of laboratory: he presented new ideas, and tested new hypotheses. His objective was to transmit to his students the habitus of the researcher: intellectual rigor, seriousness, and teamwork moving back and forth from theory to empirical investigation. He liked to say that the sociologist walks with big boots, and that most of his own experiments dealt with things that appeared visible and obvious. And he was right! While he certainly had philosophical leanings (such as Merleau-Ponty and Witgenstein) and epistemological concerns -- as his work affirms --, Pierre Bourdieu never disconnected his theoretical reflections from the study of concrete problems or objects (as seen in his examinations of the Kabile household, matrimonial strategies in the Bearn, workers in Algeria, and European Museums, photography and the school system in France). He liked polemics (as illustrated by his opposition to Levi-Strauss, structural Marxism, symbolic interactionism, and, later, postmodernism), defended eclecticism (in Marx, Durkheim and Weber, for instance), and supported interdisciplinarity (in disciplines such as anthropology, linguistics, economics, history and political science). He also rejected canonical dichotomies (such as determinism/liberty, subjectivism/objectivism, and structure/history). One of his most important works during this period was the translation and the publication of his collection "Le sens commun" at the Editi ons de Minuit. This text included the work of many American, English and German authors: Panofsky, Cassirer, Bateson, Goffman, Labov, Bernstein, Richard Hoggart, Marcuse, Ralph Linton, Edward Sapir, Joseph Schumpeter, and Radclife-Brown. Pierre Bourdieu's Last Lecture at the College de France. Pierre Bourdieu's last lecture at the College de France was on March 27, 2001, at the Rue des Ecoles, Amphi. Marguerite-de-Navarre. More than five hundred people were in attendance, including some former students and collaborators: Patrick Champagne, Remi Lenoir, Bernard Lacroix, Jean-Claude Combessie, and Francien Dreyfus. Bourdieu's talk was entitled "Sociology of the scientific field and reflexivity." With his last lecture at the College de France, Bourdieu the sociologist returned to the study of knowledge, the most prestigious object in philosophy, but with a twist: he discussed the structural perspective that he introduced in the field of sociology. …

The Promise of the City: Space, Identity, and Politics in Contemporary Social Thought. (Book Reviews/Comptes Rendus)

Abstract: Kian Tajbakhsh, The Promise of the City: Space, Identity, and Politics in Contemporary Social Thought. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001, 229 pp. I must confess that I didn't initially approach The Promise of the City with much enthusiasm. With chapter titles like "Marxian Class Analysis, Essentialism, and the Problem of Urban Identity" and "Beyond the Functionalist Bias in Urban Theory," I imagined the book to be a throwback to the early 1980s when it was still trendy to engage in long debates over the influence of neo-Marxist writing on urban and regional research. As it turns out, Kian Tajbakhsh, who teaches Urban Policy and Politics at the New School for Social Research, has written a thoughtful and challenging overview of contemporary themes and controversies in critical urban theory. Most of The Promise of the City is taken up with what the author calls the "urbanistic challenge to Marxian theory." In particular, he targets three fundamental notions: that urban identity is interchangeable with class identity; that the spaces of power and identity are physical and locally bounded; and that the capitalist economy, operating independently from the discursive practices of the everyday, is the primary framer of urban meaning and action. As a device for examining the class/urban relation, he devotes a chapter each to appraising the work of three critical urban theorists: Manuel Castells, David Harvey and Ira Katznelson. Castells, he argues, has veered from the rigid reductionism of Marxist theory whereby community-based identities are fully marginalized relative to class, to a kind of rudderless empiricism which catalogues urban movements based on class, neighbourhood and race without linking them in terms of their genesis, dynamics or interrelations. Harvey's holistic analysis of the global circuits of capital accumulation as they impact cities denies the agency of community actors, subsuming their "lifeworld" within that of the "system." In his most recent work, however, Harvey has finally acknowledged that state power and the market economy can act as sources of alienation and domination, independent from that of economic class exploitation. Of the trio, Tajbakhsh seems most in sympathy with Katznelson's approach, although he nonetheless faults him for his reluctance to drop the Marxian class scheme in favour of a theoretical model of identity and agency which would both "allow for a more complex notion of space, and more over incorporate gender as a constitutive, rather than supplementary, element" (p. 154). Having largely discounted Marxian urban theory, what then does Tajbakhsh himself propose as an alternative? …